The electronic edition is a part of the University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill digital library, Documenting the American
South.

Languages used in the text:
English

Revision history:

2005-03-15, Sarah Ficke finished TEI/XML encoding.

Part of a series:
This transcribed document is part of a digital collection, titled True and Candid
Compositions: The Lives and Writings of Antebellum Students in North
Carolina
written by
Lindemann, Erika

Source(s):

Title of collection: Wilson and Hairston Family Papers
(#4134), Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill

Title of document: Letter from Alpheus Jones to Peter W.
Hairston, October 23, 1837

Author: Alpheus Jones

Description: 3 pages, 4 page images

Note:
Call number 4134 (Southern Historical
Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)

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Document Summary

Jones gives former student Hairston a report on enrollment (142
students), changes in the faculty, and the condition of the Dialectic and
Philanthropic Societies.

You may think that I have deferred, a long while, to comply with my
agreement; after having promised you, last Session, in a sort of indirect
manner, though not positively, that I would write to you. But I have been under
the impression that you promised to write to me first: and hence, expecting a
letter from you by almost every mail, I have postponed till this late period
'expressing my ideas to you through medium of a letter.'

It would appear, (for I very seldom hear from you), that you have
fallen in with so many of the noble sons of Old
Virginia,
that you have almost entirely forgotten your old acquaintances at this
University. But probably some of the circumstances
herein mentioned may serve to arouse your memory, and, by bringing to your
recollection many past scenes, render more perfect those pleasures
which I hope you now enjoy.

It may be somewhat cheering to you to learn, by the Catalogue, of
the flourishing and still more promising condition of our
University at present. The number of Students is
142;3 and,
if every "Fresh" Class continue to have as many members as the
present one, by the time that my Class graduates, the whole number of Students
will amount to 200 or more.4 And
I know that it is still more pleasing to you to learn that the number of
members of the
Dialectic Society has increased so much: but all our
rooms are completely filled up. And some5 of
our members (as you will see by the Catalogue) have taken rooms in the village.
So that

Page 2

every new member, on coming to
College, (unless he have a particular friend in the
Dialectic Society or unless he be situated in some
other peculiar circumstances), is left entirely in the hands of the
Phis, none of our members being willing to
"screw" him, since they would have no room in which to put him. Hence
it is almost certain that the
Phis will increase in number.

But so soon as our
University rises in one respect, it appears to
decline in another; for while the number of Students has been increasing, it
seems that other Colleges have been attempting, by offering larger salaries
(I suppose) to deprive us of our Professors.
Professor W. Hooper has resigned, to become President of a
College in
South
Carolina, (which you may have seen published in the "Raleigh
Register", together with a farewell address to him by our Poet,
George
Horton.)6 Also
the Professorship of Mathematics has been offered to
Pro.
Phillips by a College in
Mississippi. But I believe that he takes interest enough in
our
University not to accept of it.

The Faculty, not long since, granted us Friday night and Saturday
morning, for the purpose of the meeting of the two Societies; and still, on
account of the increase of members, we are obliged to sit up, every Friday
night, until about 12 o'clock. We also continue in Session on Saturday util 12
o'clock or after. The
Phis came very near refusing, at the first of the
Session, to petition with us, although they had agreed to do so last Session,
when the number of members of both Societies was then less than it is at

Page 3

present; and I suppose they would not have
petitioned with us at all, had it not been to avoid such a palpable
inconsistency as they would have inevitably fallen into by refusing. If I could
see you I could tell you of a number of their actions such as those we were
frequently criticising last Session. But I suppose it useless to mention them
in a letter.

The present "Fresh" Class, is the most pugnacious and wild
set that I have seen in some time. They have had no less than three fights
in it this Session; and a few mornings ago
there was a half-grown steer in the bull-pen in the
old
chapel,7 at
prayers, which I suppose was placed there by the "Fresh". It
happened, that he was placed there in the absence of our President,
Gov.
Swain, or I suppose we would have had a speech from him on the
subject.

I have sent you by the same mail with this letter an Address of
Judge
Strange (4,000 copies of which the Society had printed) and a Catalogue
of the
University. You may be surprised at finding so many
regulars (as the Catalogue would give you to understand), in the Junior Class.
But all of those whose names are marked with an (n)
are irregulars; also those marke with an (a) are
Dies; of course the rest are
Phis; it were useless to distinguish any except
"newies", however, I have distinguished all.
John R.
Wilson told me to send you his respects. Accept the same from me.

Endnotes:

1. Wilson and Hairston Family Papers, SHC. The letter is addressed
"Mr. Peter W. Hairston,/
Charlottesville/Va." and is stamped with a circular postmark in
the upper left corner; "CHAPEL
HILL
N.C." appears in the circumference of the
circle, and "OCT 24" appears in the center of the circle. The amount
of postage, "18 3/4" cents, is handwritten in the upper right corner
of the envelope.

5.
Jones wrote "filled up. And some" on top of
"now completely filled."

6.
Horton's poem appeared in the Raleigh
Register and North-Carolina Gazette on October 9, 1837 (See poem). The Raleigh
Register and North-Carolina Gazette had announced on September 11,
1837, that
Hooper would be "President of the
[Furman] Theological Seminary at
Winnsboro [SC]" (3).

7. A common prank was to tie up animals in the chapel. Though
sources do not describe the inside of the old chapel (Person Hall), it evidently was laid out in much the same way as the new chapel
(Gerrard
Hall), though on a smaller scale: "In the original seating
arrangement [of the new chapel], there was located in the centre of the hall a
nave about 18 feet square which the students irreverently called the
'bull-pen.' This consisted of a semi-circular row of benches with backs so high
that only the heads of the persons seated therein could be seen from the rear.
Distinguished guests and speakers were seated in the 'bull-pen,' which
accommodated about forty persons. A narrow passageway connected the 'bull-pen'
with the speakers' stand, located at the west end of the hall. Occasionally the
students would fasten a patient bull yearling in the nave; and perhaps from
such incident the nave derived its common name" (Henderson 91).